Why Cycling is Perfect

On The Iron Yard and why biking is great

It’s officially been a week at The Iron Yard and so far it’s been a great experience. I’ve been learning an immense amount and putting in a lot of work, and it’s all been incredibly enjoyable. Whenever I’m programming and working through a tough problem, I feel like I’ve taken Adderall, even though I haven’t been anywhere near the stuff. I’m incredibly focused and block out everything that’s going on in our lab space very easily. I feel as though I’ve never been so focused on any task before. I guess thats what happens when you enjoy doing something?

I find myself putting in an immense amount of time, but I don’t even notice. Generally I’m up at about 7:30, am in class by 9:00, and am working in some capacity until at least 8:00 at night. On the weekends I’m probably spending 5-6 hours a day at the minimum. From everything I’ve read about The Iron Yard and other code schools, I only expect this time commitment to rise.

Luckily for myself, I happen to live near Southpoint and have been biking the 7 or so miles to TIY on the Tobacco Trail. It’s a walking/bike path the whole way and I find I really enjoy the pure physicality of it after having such a ‘mental’ day and it’s a great way to wake up. I also find that I generally will end up leaving TIY around 5:30-6:00 and be close to done with a project, but still have one or two little things to finish that I can’t quite figure out. It seems like as soon as I hop on my bike the idea of how to fix that last problem springs up on me and I have my base assignment finished only a few minutes after getting home.